New Ulm weekly review., 1887-08-17

i burlington. Iowa. body: John McMasteTs. Peo-
| ria. body: Frank Brown, Peoria, hand; Mrs.
/ Kellogg, fremont, body; Mrs. x u. Welsh. Peo-
i ria. body: Mrs. Isaac.Boty. Whiteside. Ill., body;
4 Catherine Lot. Peoria. body; Blanche Allen,
Peoria, body. .f b
THE STORY IN DETAIL.
Graphic Account of the Most Horrible Rail-
road Accident of Modern Times.
FOREST Ill, Aug. il All the railway hor-
rors in the history of this country were sur
passed tnree-miles east Of Chatgworth last
night, when an excursion train on the To-
ledo, Peoria Western road dropped
through a burning bridge and over one hun
dred people were killed. and four times that
number more or less badly injured The
train was composed of six sleeping cars. six
day coaches and chait cars and three bag
gage cars. 1t was carrying $50 passengers,
all excursionists, and was bound for Mia
CARA Falls. The train had been made up all
| along the line of the Toledo, Peoria & Vest
ern road, and the excursioDists hailed from
various points in Central Illinois, the bulk of
them, however, coming from Peoria. Some
I OF the passengers came from Canton, from
1 Ell Paso, Washington and, in fact, all sta
tions along the line from as far west as Bur
llington and Keokuk, Iowa. A special and
| cheap rate had been made for the ex-
cursion, and all sorts of people took
! advantage of it When the train
drew out of Peoria at 8 O'clock last
evening. it was loaded to it's utmost
| capacity. Every berth in the six sleepers
! was taken, and the day cars carried sixty
people each. The train was SO heavy that
two engines were hitched to it, and when it
passed this place it was an hour and a half
behind time. Chatsworth. the next station
east of here. is six miles OFF and the run
there was made in seven minuteg, SO the ter
rible momentum of those fifteen coaches
and two heavy engines shooting through
space at the rate of a mile a inmate can be
understood. No stop was made at Chats
worth, and on and on the heavy train with
it's living freight sped through the darkness
of the night Three miles east of Chats
worth there is little slough and where the
railroad track crosses run about ten feet
deep and fifteen feet wide Over this was
stretched an ordinary wooden trestle bridge,
and as the excursion train came laundering
down on it what was the horror of the en-
gineer on the front engine when he saw that
this bridge was afire! Right up before his
eyes leaped the bright flames, and the next
instant he was among them There was
NO CHANCE TO STOP.
taken half mile to stop that onrushing
! mass of wood, iron aud humanity, and the
train was within one hundred yards of the
red-tongued messengers of death before
they flashed their fatal signals into the en-
gineer's face. But he passed over in safety,
the first engine keeping the rails AS it
went over the bridge fell beneath it, and it
could only have been the terrific speed of
ffln ha Of tho ON,
gineer and his fireman But the next en-
gine went down, and instantly the deed Of
death was done Car crashed into car;
coaches piled one on top of The other, and in
the tWinkling of an eye nearly one hundred
people found instant death and fifty more
were SO hurt they could not live. AS for the
wounded, they were everywhere Only the
sleeping coaches escaped, and as the startled
and half-dressed passengers came tumbling
out of them they found such scene of
death as is rarely Witnessed and such work
| to do that it seemed as if human hands were
utterly incapable. 1t lacked but five min
utes of midnight Down in the ditch lay the
| second engineer, McClintock, dead, and fire.
man, Applegate, badly injured On top were
piled the three baggage cars, one on top of
another, like chtld's toy block house after
| he had swept it with his hand. Then came
the six day coaches They were telescoped
as cars never were before, and three of them
| were pressed into just space enough for one.
| The second car had mounted off its trucks,
crashed through the car ahead of it, and lay
there resting on the top of the seats while
/ every passenger in the front car was laying
dead or dying underneath. Out of that car
! but four people
| CAME OUT ALIVE
On top of the second car lay the third, and
although the latter did not cover its bearer
as completely as the one beneath, its bottom
was smeared with the blood of its victims.
The other cars were not SO badly crushed,
but they were broken and twisted in every
conceivable way, and every crushed timber
/ and beam represented a crushed human
| frame and a broken bone. Instantly the air
was filed with the cries of the wounded
| and the shrieks of those about ,to die. The
| groans of men, the screams of women
! united to make an appalling sound,
1 and above all could be heard the agonizing
cries of little children, as in some instances
they lay pinned alongside their parents.
And there was another terrible danger to be
met The bridge was still burning and the
/ wrecked cars were laying on and around
the fercely burning embers. Everywhere
in the wreck were wounded and unhurt
men, women and children, whose lives
could be saved if they could be
| gotten out, but whose death and
i Death in a most terrible form was certain il
/ the twisted wood Of the broken cars caught
fire. And to fight the fire there was not a
drop of water, and only some fifty able
i bodied men who had still presence Of mind
4 and nerve enough to do their dutY8 The